Blind Five Year Old

Twitter finally got around to launching lists and immediately created a whole new competitive mania that may render them useless.

Listed

By simply showing Listed as a major metric Twitter encourages comparisons. Listed will be the new Followers. We’ll see Followers to Listed ratios cranked out by the companies who traffic in these sorts of meta data measures of authority and influence.

Instead of using lists to help users manage the stream of data, they’ve turned them into a competition.

Following Twitter Lists

The ability to follow lists also creates competition. Which SEO list is best? Who’s Ruby Rock Stars list should you follow? Lists allow users to segment, but how many instances are you really going to follow? Does it help me to follow 25 instances of an SEO list? Probably not.

Suddenly a person’s lists are going to have an attached Followers metric. You could argue that the number of Followers helps define comparative quality, but that hasn’t worked for users has it? So why would it work for lists?

My motivation for creating a list isn’t to attract followers, it’s to help me turn data into information.

Twitter Lists Do Not Equal Authority or Influence

The impetus for creating a list is for the user to manage their data flow. (Or it should be!) Using a data segmentation taxonomy as a proxy to show authority just doesn’t compute. The motivation is not to grant authority to those on a list, but to simply shape data.

Lists is a grouping, but it assigns no weight to an individual within that group. We all know people who are ubiquitous but might not be well regarded. Nevertheless you’d likely put them on a topical list.

Volume is essentially what Listed measures. People with varied interests will be added to many lists. People who have played the Followers game will be added to many lists. Quantity wins, not quality.

Furthermore, once people understand that lists are the new Followers you’ll have people asking to be added to lists, trading list additions and new accounts will spring up for the sole purpose of getting users on the ‘right’ lists. It’s an obvious gaming nightmare.

Twitter Lists Don’t Define You

There’s an offhand defense of lists I’m hearing many employ: “lists show how others think of you.”

Who cares! Guess what, I stopped caring about that my sophomore year in high school. But isn’t that the DNA of Twitter? A navel-gazing popularity contest that somehow is supposed to validate value and contribution.

Thanks but no thanks.

The Real Problem with Lists

The idea behind lists seems to be around user discovery.

It’s supposed to help you find “interesting accounts.” But lists (of any kind) don’t effectively do this because people are multi-faceted.

I have a varying level of expertise and contribution in many fields. My inclusion on Danny Sullivan’s Search Marketing list is nice, but will people following that list get value from my bicycling and book related tweets?

Lists give you a complete timeline for a group of people to whom someone has assigned a certain user defined attribute. It doesn’t mean you’re going to actually get content matching that user defined attribute. This mismatch makes it difficult to find ‘interesting accounts’.

Lists are simply a blunt instrument in the transformation of data into information.

There are a lot of bad SEO firms and consultants out there that make it more difficult for SEO to become a recognized and valuable part of every business.

I recently conducted a search for a SEO Manager at Caring.com and was bombarded with pitches from SEO firms and consultants. Based on this experience and some research I’ve come up with a list.

11 Ways to Spot a Bad SEO Firm

Rank Promise

Any SEO firm that promises you a number one ranking for any term before doing any keyword research or competitive analysis should be avoided.

Instant Results

SEO isn’t about what you can do in 30 days but a long-term plan to match your content with user queries. That’s not to say that progress won’t be made in the short-term, but beware of the get results fast pitch.

Network of Quality Links

A number of firms will claim that they have a “network of quality sites” that enable them to drive links back to your site. In general, these networks aren’t of such high quality and are often the target of web spam teams. Quality linkbuilding isn’t as easy as turning on a switch. It takes time and that’s why the links are valuable.

Submissions Bonanza

“We’ll submit you to over 500 search engine and directory sites!” Some of these engines and directories are valuable but most aren’t and may even wind up hurting you if it’s done in a zombie like fashion.

Inside Algorithm Knowledge

People at Google don’t hand out information about the algorithm. Anyone who says they have a ‘Deep Throat’ of search is likely wearning a tin-foil hat or running a scam.

Bad SEO

Visit the firm’s site and see if they’ve done a good job with their own SEO. Spot rudimentary SEO errors such as duplicate titles and you can write them off.

Adjectivitis

Throw a flag on the play if you see a site or pitch peppered with adjectives. For example: “Our talented optimizers use premiere methodologies to secure highly valuable links, elevating search engine presence and delivering targeted web traffic to your site.”

In my experience, the need to over sell your service is a sign that you’re not confident in your own ability.

Unsolicited Analysis

You might have received some of these emails. The firm has kindly done an analysis of your site and determined that you should be ranking higher for [insert term here]. Lucky for you, you can fix all that in no time at all by … [deleted]

Meaningless Statistics

Beware of statistics that have no basis in reality. “We outperform our nearest competitors 3 to 1 in the time it takes to get you ranked.” There are so many things wrong with that statement it makes my head hurt.

Bogus Testimonials

References and testimonials help sell many a service. Be on the look out for bogus testimonials on ‘neutral’ websites. It helps when they use their own name or do cut and paste with a fingerprint-like misspelling.

Repeated Robo-Emails

Sending the same email again and again based on a Craigslist ad is both annoying and a clear signal of desperation. Avoid these folks at all costs.

SEO isn’t about speed or automation. I’m not saying there aren’t efficiencies – there are. But the goal of SEO is to ensure that the content of your site is matched and being displayed to users for the right queries. That’s done in a myriad of ways – some small and some large.

Don’t be taken in by bad SEO. Use these tips and find firms and consultants who will give you a sound strategy and straight advice.

You’ll be doing yourself and me a favor.

Now is the time when bloggers go on the record with their thoughts for the year ahead. Place your bets! Stake your claim! Here’s mine.

Facebook Becomes A Portal

Realizing that social media and advertising is like oil and water, Facebook repositions itself as a portal leveraging Microsoft’s Live Search as the revenue model. This also might result in the potential acquisition of Netvibes to provide a more robust offering to compete with Yahoo!

Identity Systems Fail

Confused about the difference between OpenID, Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, users throw up their hands and decide not to use any of the above.

Video Advertising Succeeds

The adoption of video is surging faster than many expected. Longer formats and better quality will bring even more eyeballs who will grudgingly accept advertising.

Microformats Go Mainstream

Why they aren’t already is shocking. Nevertheless, in 2009 we’ll see microformats become a standard and search results will become far more robust as a result.

Banner CTR Becomes Obsolete

Brands will finally realize that measuring success by click through rate (CTR) isn’t working. Measurement ‘beyond clicks’ will be the new yardstick, whether that’s through new brand advertising measurement services like Vizu or through monitoring services like Brandwatch and Trackur among a gaggle of others.

RSS Adoption Spikes

Someone will (finally) figure out how to market RSS to ‘the masses’ who will grasp the sublime benefits of having content come to you instead of the other way around.

Kindle 2.0 Flops

Amid a weak economy Amazon releases the newest version of Kindle. Other readers have gained ground where Kindle has not and at the core Kindle is a solution without a problem.

Google Search Share Stalls

The move by Facebook (see above) causes a radical change in the search landscape. Microsoft passes Yahoo! for second place and talks about a Microsoft Yahoo merger are (unbearably) reignited.

FriendFeed Surpasses Twitter

FriendFeed adoption increases at an accelerated pace due to quick innovation, uncluttered design and an interface that lends itself to communication.

Someone ‘Dies’

Users reach social media overload and VCs get even more nervous about revenue creating social media shrinkage. In this instance ‘Dying’ means a company goes under or is purchased for a song. My short list includes Plurk, Twitter, Digg and Seesmic. This isn’t a reflection of the people or product but the inability to truly reach the mainstream with a service that has a profit model.

There are plenty of other things that I believe will happen in 2009, but they seem more obvious or an extension of current trends. Instead I tried to be a bit more bold, at least on a few of my predictions.

We’ll check in this time next year to see how I fared. In the meantime, feel free to comment and provide your feedback and reaction to my predictions.